


Oh, what a regular badass, Milly-fox.

by Pitseleh



Category: Doctrine of Labyrinths - Sarah Monette
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drug Addiction, F/M, M/M, Modeling, POV First Person, Past Tense, Pining, Rehabilitation, Sibling Love, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-22 23:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pitseleh/pseuds/Pitseleh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So I lit a cigarette and waited. Was smoking allowed in flash apartments like this? Fuck if I knew. I figured, if someone wanted to give me grief about it, they'd speak up, but no one tried anything. Once, an old lady with this tiny little dog-- looked like a fluffy rat, you know the type-- came up to me with a look like maybe her lungs was going south and me smoking wasn't helping. But she took one good look at my face, and asked me for the time instead. The thing was, I could see the dinky little watch on her wrist. Once, I would've tried to lift it off her, maybe pawn it on Fifth Avenue. Instead, I thanked my fucking stars I wasn't a teenager no more, and put out my cigarette.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Oh, what a regular badass, Milly-fox.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Minviendha (Lise)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/gifts).



> So, this is supposed to be a modern AU, but I found it difficult to take all the slang out of Mildmay, so I don't know how modern or where they are. But I took out all the septads and gorgons, so I guess they're not in Melusine! Whatever, I'm sure you can roll with it. The basic premise is: Felix is a junkie model, and Mildmay is his beleaguered body guard. I tried my best to run with it. 
> 
> Anyway: Have a great New Year's, Lise. This is the most ridiculous AU ever and I love it, thank you for giving me the initial idea. And thank you, AR, for the lightening quick beta and letting me use you as a soundboard.

The hardest fucking thing, though, was trying to get all the booze and snuff outta an apartment I ain't never been in before. Felix was still drying out in some fancy clinic one of his old fuckbuddies had paid to lock him up in, and that guy'd got the keys, and now he was coming by, and I had to stop thinking of him as 'Felix's fuckbuddy' because I was gonna have to look him in the face pretty damn soon.

I think his name was Gideon?

So I lit a cigarette and waited. Was smoking allowed in flash apartments like this? Fuck if I knew. I figured, if someone wanted to give me grief about it, they'd speak up, but no one tried anything. Once, an old lady with this tiny little dog-- looked like a fluffy rat, you know the type-- came up to me with a look like maybe her lungs was going south and me smoking wasn't helping. But she took one good look at my face, and asked me for the time instead. The thing was, I could see the dinky little watch on her wrist. Once, I would've tried to lift it off her, maybe pawn it on Fifth Avenue. Instead, I thanked my fucking stars I wasn't a teenager no more, and put out my cigarette.

Gideon showed up a few minutes later, all apologies. I'd never met him in person, just got the address and all that crap from him on the phone. He looked like his voice, though, all reedy and shy. He never said 'I'm sorry', but the angle of his back, all crooked, and the slant of his shoulders, always shrugged, said it for him.

Had a face like an angel, though. I could see in a second how everything with Felix'd turned out. Must've been nice, I guessed, to be the one in charge, for once.

Well, anyway, Gideon showed up then, and let me in, and pulled out a list of shit the clinic had told us to do.

"We should immediately dispose of any alcohol on the premise," he said, and I nodded. 

"D'you know where he keeps his booze?"

Gideon frowned. "...No."

"Right." I walked over to where the kitchen probably was supposed to have been, once. I mean, there wasn't no food in it. "That makes two of us."

I'd met Felix maybe twice? Three times? Since Miss Parr's fancyass PI agency had found me and told me I had a brother, and each time I'd seen him, Felix hadn't exactly been on the right side of sober. I knew there was some stuff in this apartment that Felix probably shouldn't come home to, but fuck if I knew where he'd kept it. 

"D'you know what he drank?" I asked over my shoulder. "Maybe it wasn't the type that needed being kept in the fridge..." 

I was looking around in the cabinets, which seemed to have been pretty fucking ignored during the time Felix'd lived here. There were empty cans, half-opened containers, something that looked like dirt... you know, all the normal shit for a junkie to have up in their cupboards. All the stuff that had been forgotten about, in the last few months when the addiction had become a career instead of a hobby, and then remembered about, when the money'd run out and Felix'd had to scrounge around looking for food he'd forgotten he still needed. And wasn't that a shitty image. I got distracted, thinking about my only family, and how fucked up _that_ was, and I reached in too far, and apparently Felix'd had a mouse problem at some fucking point, or maybe he kept mouse traps around in his cupboard for shits and giggles. 

I yowled like a tomcat and swore til I was blue in the face. Gideon came over and pried the damn thing off me, laughing the whole time. I guess I deserved that. Anyway, after, he warmed up to me a bit. I guess he saw I wasn't a total thug, if I can get tripped up by a goddamn mouse trap.

"The alcohol... I can't help you there." He said, walking from one empty, shitty room into another. "He mostly drank when he was out... I think, by the end, he couldn't quite afford to have alcohol in house anymore."

I thought about the kids I'd known, who'd gotten fucked up over snuff and darker shit than that. "Sounds about right," I said.

"But I do... er, that is, I _do_ know where he kept his..."

"His stash."

"Er, yes. Quite."

I guess 'stash' is easier to say than whatever the hell Gideon was thinking of. Anyway, it was under a floorboard in the bedroom, right next to where the bed had probably been before Felix had pawned it off, mattress and all. I cringed, thinking of that-- I'd talked to Felix only a couple of times, but I hadn't gotten the impression that he was someone very good at haggling. But, well, what junkie is?

"Ah, yeah," I said when I pulled out my knife and pried the floorboard open. Underneath there was a shoebox, right as rain. "I can see him liking this shit. The secrecy and all."

Gideon nodded, frowning. "I suppose." He looked all sad to see the truth of it, like he hadn't had to hire me to drag my own damn brother, kicking and screaming, to a clinic, and then convince his sorry ass to sign himself up. But I guess that's what happens when you're in... whatever Gideon was in with Felix. I mean, I guess it was love, or something close enough to it to count. He was sure shelling out a lot of cash for him, anyway. I figured, if Gideon expected something special as a thank you after everything'd settled, well. I'd burn that bridge right the fuck down when I came to it. But not before then.

So, for right now, I had a shoebox filled with some strong stuff, by the looks of it. I wasn't tempted, myself-- I'd tried it once or twice when I was younger, but I hadn't liked how it made me lose my edge. Still, I knew some guys who could give me a good price for it. 

I said as much to Gideon, who looked, as Zephyr would say, _positively aghast_.

"No, you- you can't _sell_ it. What kind of example would that set?"

I thought about what I'd been doing at fourteen. Fuck, I thought about what _Felix_ had apparently been doing at fourteen. I was past setting examples, and Felix was past needing them, that was for shit sure. 

I didn't say that, though.

"I wouldn't _tell_ him where the money came from." I shrugged, and put the battered old shoebox under my arm. "But we're gonna need it."

"Why?" Gideon said, still, you know, aghast.

"Well, Felix ain't really gonna be up to going back to work any time soon." I'd seen how this all worked. Felix wasn't gonna be good to nobody for a long damn time. "And he's gonna need a babysitter, which means I ain't gonna be getting back to work any time soon, neither." Not to mention the whole thing of, oh, you know, I used to steal shit for a living, and my name's mud now, so it ain't like that's an option no more, but thanks for asking.

But Gideon just kept on sitting on the floor where there used to be a bed, staring up at me all bewildered. "Oh... Felix didn't tell you?"

"Felix's in a damn padded cell for all I know. Last thing he said to me was if I could sneak him some of this." I looked at the box under my arm.

"Oh, yes... right, of course." Gideon cleared his throat, stood up. "I've paid the rent on this apartment for the next few months. Do you... do you think he'll be able to work again, after that?"

"Oh, yeah. Sure." Really, I figured, after a few months' free ride, I wasn't one to ask for more. If Felix couldn't work by then, well, I'd deal with that when the time for that to be dealt with. 

And, I mean, how hard's modeling, anyway? You just sit tight and let folks snap pictures of you, right? I mean, I always figured there was some shady sex shit going on underneath-- I'd asked around, after I'd found out Felix was my brother, and apparently he'd been into some shady sex shit _before_ and that was how he'd gotten into modeling in the first place, but who the hell was I to judge, I'd killed people, for fuck's sake. 

Anyway, if there was anything still going on, I'd put paid to that real damn quick. Felix could model. I didn't think neither of us'd like ourselves very much if I let any whoring go on, though.

So I lied, and Gideon beamed like a schoolboy. "Good, then. Could you, er... could you throw that out, then?" He pointed to the box under my arm, and I figured, well, fuck it. If this guy was my sugar daddy now (and there's a fucking thought. Somewhere I bet Keeper was laughing her ass off), I best follow the damn rules.

"Uh, sure," I said. "Let's see if this place still gets water."

It did. I flushed a few hundred dollars worth of snuff down the toilet. That night I didn't have anyplace else to go, so I told Gideon I'd keep searching the apartment for booze and he didn't have to wait up for me. He gave me the keys, trusting as a milkmaid, and that night, I slept on the empty wood floors. Well, I didn't do much sleeping. I stared out the windows and walked around on the creaky floorboards, and thought about my junkie brother curled up in a corner, jabbering to himself and waiting for his next hit. Where'd he used to shoot up? Probably near where he kept his stash. And, wow, did I not wanna think about that.

At around the two in the morning, I found me a _mostly_ empty bottle of old, cheap wine in the bathroom. I drank it to get rid of it, because I was feeling, you know, real responsible. It tasted like something'd died in the bottle, but that shit always makes me sleepy, and I was out until five, when my phone alarm went off and I got up like I still had a job to do. I didn't. I'd sold that down the river.

I played Snake for an hour-- my phone ain't fancy, thanks-- and thought about calling up Miss Parr. What the hell'd I even say, though? Thanks for telling me I got a junkie brother, that's what I always wanted? The sad thing, though, and I mean the pathetic type of sad, not the tragic type, well, the sad thing was that it _was_ what I'd wanted. What was it Keeper always said? All you want's somebody to have a need for you, Milly-fox. And that was me, right down to the marrow of it.

So, no, I didn't end up calling Miss Parr.

Felix's place still had hot water, so I took a shower just when the sun was coming up, and waited for it to be time for me to go get Felix. I thought, maybe I could ask him to ask Gideon for furniture money, since Felix'd clearly sold all his to pay for his new lifestyle. But that'd have to wait until it was time to spring Felix, and I gotta say, I seriously wasn't looking forward to that. I wanted Felix okay, all dried out, you know that shit. But I'd never met him sober.

What if he didn't like me, when he was sober?

Shut the hell up, Milly-fox. Nobody needs you all dithering like a teenage girl. Least of all, Felix. So I did pushups and situps and tried not to think about it. I found some stale bread in the cupboards, and I went out on the flashie fucking terrace Felix had in his apartment and I fed the birds. When I got bored of that, I cleaned the apartment as best I could with water and a rag and some dish soap, and by the end of it, I think it looked pretty okay. And then I just sorta waited for it to be the noon. And eventually it was. I ain't so special that time stops for me, even though, a lot of the time, it feels like it does anyway, just to fuck with my head.

So I got out of the damn apartment after I'd checked it maybe a thousand times for every kind of booze you could think up. And mostly I'd found mostly empty wine bottles that'd clearly been left places and then just forgotten. I didn't drink any of them after the first go round, though. No fucking point. I sold them to a wineo I knew on the corner of Fifty-Second for a fiver, and I thought about how pathetic my life'd become. Not that it was ever, you know, anything to brag about.

At least, when I got Felix out, I'd have somebody to think about that wasn't me.

Felix's clinic was pretty okay. It's the sort of place where it's supposed to look like a real flash hotel, not, you know, a place where you can dry out in peace. I'll be honest, I don't really get the point of that, I mean, the secretary knows it's a clinic, and so do the patients, and I'll fucking bet you the maids who gotta clean up all that vomit know it ain't some normal hotel. But there I was with elevator music playing in the lobby, trying to talk to one of the girls at the front desk who looked like she'd been built to match the decor. Which is to say, her hair was as red as a bushfire, and that clashed real pretty with all the green plants filling the place up. I guess that's why they called this place the Gardens of Whatever. Nephnili or something. I dunno.

Anyway, I said, "I'm here to pick up Mr Harrowgate?"

The girl at the front desk looked me over once, and saw my scar, and I guess she thought I was a pusher or something (which is fucking dumb if you think about it for one second, because why the hell would a pusher come _here_ ) because she said, "Is today his scheduled release date?"

And I said, "I ain't the one got a job where that's my business to know, lady." Even though, technically, I guess, you could think that I did, now. I didn't know if I wanted to laugh or cry. Mildmay the Fox, ex-cat burglar, ex-murderer, professional babysitter for the rich and stupid.

So the girl just smiled at me, real fake like. "If you could just sit down, someone will be right with you." And I sat, because being trained to do what you're told all the time don't just go away overnight.

After maybe fifteen minutes, Felix wandered into the lobby with a folder full of papers and a doctor keeping pace real slow behind him. Felix looked at me all bug-eyed, embarrassed, I guess, and I stuck my hands in my pockets, because what the fuck else do you do for this shit. They sure as hell didn't talk about it in the Saturday morning cartoons I used to watch. That's where I'd learned what 'normal' was, anyway.

The doctor said, "You're family?"

"Yeah," I said back. "I am."

"Well, Felix here has a few papers for you to look over as to the terms of his treatment. Please call if there are any issues." 

I nodded. He looked at me. I looked at him. I ain't one much for chitchat, and he got that, I guess, because he just said his goodbyes and fucking left. And Felix walked behind me like a ghost. When we was out on the street again, I said hi.

He said hi back.

"I... I know we met before this point, but I'll be honest, I don't... entirely recall it." He was staring at his shoes.

"Yeah," I said. "I figured." 

We kept walking. I didn't know what the fuck to say, so I just, you know, I hid it in silence. Old habits.

This buggered the fuck out of Felix, though, I could tell. Even when he was half fucking crazy with a fever and trying to get my pants off me for the price of another hit, he couldn't stand it when someone wasn't talking, most of all him. So he said, real quiet, "Mildmay?"

"Yeah, that's me."

"Are, um..." He cleared his throat. Who the hell does that? Models, I guess. Models who used to be into whoring. Oh, wow, did I not wanna think about that. Anyway, Felix said, "Where... where are we going?"

Oh, duh, Milly-fox, the poor boy ain't psychic. "Your apartment," I said, hoping I didn't sound, oh, shit, what was the word. Condescending, I think.

Felix looked like he'd just swallowed a hiccup, kinda surprised. "Oh, I... I assumed I'd have been evicted by this point."

No, honey, that was _me_. "Naw, your, uh..." Your fuckbuddy. "Your friend Gideon paid the rent a couple months. You don't got to get back to work too soon."

Felix frowned, the angle of his face changing. He was naturally all angles and shit, but the drugs had taken out of him everything that wasn't a cheekbone or a hipbone or a chin, so the boy was all bone now, and kind of sallow skin. They could get rid of that with computers though, now, right? Or maybe that's what they wanted. Fuck if I knew anything about modeling with this ugly mug.

But Felix just kept frowning, kept thinking. 

I decided to ask: "Gideon, is he, uh... he the type to ask for something in return?"

Thank Kethe I didn't have to explain what I meant to Felix. From the look on his face, kind of resigned, I knew he knew straight away, maybe he'd even been thinking of it beforehand. I guess we were related, after all. Or we'd just grown up in the same fucked up city. Little of both, I guess.

He said, "I don't... I don't think so. Like with you, I don't... _precisely_ remember the early days of our acquaintance..."

Welp, someone was trying to put that whole rentboy past behind 'em. I couldn't really blame Felix, though; if I had a head good enough for flashie words, I'd sure as hell use 'em.

"Well," I said, "if'n he is, I'll..." What the hell could I do? Punch some manners into him? Oh, what a regular badass, Milly-fox. "Look, you don't gotta worry about that, okay?"

Felix made a noise in the back of his throat, somewheres between a laugh and a sigh. I reckon I deserved that. 

He said, "Yes, well... I imagine we'll figure something out. I can't go back to, um... to it," Modeling, I guess, because he sure as shit wasn't gonna go back to anything _else_ he'd done before, not if I had anything to say about it. "Not just this moment. But... in time."

I nodded, because what the hell else was I gonna do, and looked over to notice the poor boy was shivering. I mean, he was stick skinny and fucked up besides, and anyways, it was cold out, and he'd just come off some heavy shit. I got this leather jacket I've had since I was old enough to fit into it proper, and, I mean, it makes me look like some kinda rough, but it's got these pockets on the inside that I love, and I'd bought it for myself the legit way, first thing I ever bought that way with my own cash. It was the only thing I still had from the old life, and that was fine, I seriously wasn't the type for souvenirs. I just liked it, I guess. Kethe, what the hell am I doing, rambling on about some fucking jacket.

So I notice Felix was shivering, and I took off my jacket and handed it to him. There. Done. Fuck it.

Felix looked over me with eyes as big as bell wheels, and I felt kind of weird, like, what the hell do you even do with _that_? But he took the jacket and put it on. It fit hilariously bad. I ain't got the modeling figure, I mean, I used to wrestle with kids for pennies. I'm short and wide, whereas, with Felix, well, let's just say if you stuck him in a dress he wouldn't look outta place. And I mean that the real way, I ain't taking a crack at him for being a moll.

Anyway, so Felix took my jacket and looked at it, sniffing at, I guess, the cigarette smoke that hung off it like a cloud. Shit, could ex-addicts smell cigarette smoke without going off the edge? I couldn't remember. I'd have to get Felix to look through that folder full of papers once we got back. For the meantime, we just kept on walking. 

After a few minutes more, he looked up all shy like, and said, real quiet, "Are you, um... are you the type to ask for something in return?"

My eyebrows shot right the hell up, but besides that, I tried to keep my face real still. It wasn't hard, when half of it was pretty much dead anyway. So I guess Felix'd forgotten the conversations we'd had before, in the clinic, where I'd told him I wasn't interested in nothing like that. I didn't _want_ nothing from him. I ain't like that, and even if I was, Felix ain't got nothing I want. He's pretty, sure, but, girls are pretty too, and I like girls a hell of a lot better. Also we're related, which I realized, in the back of my head, bothered me less than Felix being a man, and wow was that _not_ a warm and cozy thought.

So instead of any of that, I just said, "Naw, I ain't."

"Right... yes." Felix said. Kethe, did that boy hate silences. "What kind of, er, _type_ are you, then?"

I was the type who'd killed a man before I could grow hair on my chest. Felix might feel bad about the shit that he'd done when he was a rentboy-- he'd told me about some of it, when he'd been real out of it, and I mean _real_ out to sea-- but he ain't never drowned nobody and then turned around and bragged about it.

Instead of any of that, I said, "I been around. Bouncer, bar tender, that shit." I'd tell him about murdering folk for money when we weren't walking on the street. I said, "Nothing special."

Felix scoffed. "Modeling is _hardly_ -" he stopped dead when he looked at my face, though. I guess I was giving him a look. I can't always rightly control that, not really. "Well," he said. "It's different from unskilled labor, I grant you. But it's not... it's not special."

"You're good at it," I said. When I'd heard he was related to me, I looked up what he'd done. He had that thing models do, where they got everything but they're still glowering like a dog shit their bed? Which I figured was a sign of talent, seeing as how all the big deal models did it and then some.

"Um... thank you." Very slowly, cautiously, he smiled. It wasn't like a fakey smile the type I'd seen in those photos of him, where he's holding a puppy or someone else's kid, all decked out in crushed velvet leather whatever with bells on. It was real, a real smile. I knew, because Felix didn't know what the hell to do with it. It just sat there on his face like some big accident.

I didn't smile back. But I did reach out to pat his shoulder. He nodded, polite like, and kept on walking.

"Felix. Felix?" 

He stopped.

"Felix, your apartment's _this_ way."

"Oh, um." He coughed. "Yes. Right. You lead the way."

So I did.


	2. Yes, that is an excellent euphemism, I agree.

I expected to find my old apartment in the state of squalor in which it had been left; instead, it was almost pristine in comparison. Barren, yes, but for that I only had myself to blame. "Who-?" I started, before I could stop myself. Who indeed. A maid service, surely.

Mildmay seemed to understand without the benefit of words. I supposed, given how taciturn the man was, that skill was a necessity. "Oh, me and Gideon stopped by to spruce the place up." And with a shrug, he tossed my theory out the window. 

"I don't suppose you managed to find a spare sleeping back among the detritus?"

My brother looked up at me as though I'd suddenly began speaking in tongues. Considering my past behavior, I supposed that was a fair concern. 

"You mind using words for stupid folk?"

"What?"

He repeated himself, but I was still left confused. "No, no, um, what word was... too enlightened for your mental facilities?" I realized, too late, that could be construed as cruel. Perhaps because it _was_ cruel. After everything, hadn't I proven myself lacking in moral fiber?

But Mildmay just shrugged, as if he was the customary target of verbal abuse. Perhaps he was. I would hardly know. 

"Okay, okay," he said. "No need to get nasty. I'll get a fucking sleeping bag." And then he turned, and walked to the door, and just like that, my brother was gone.

I was left alone to ponder the relative merit of leaving a man only a month sober alone with his thoughts. I pulled out the collection of papers I'd been given, wondering if there were instructions for occasions such as this. And then I stopped, because I was hardly going to let my life be lived by the bulleted instructions on a few scattered pieces of paper. Sobriety was one thing-- though, in the back of my mind, even then I only expected it to be a stop-block, a temporary reprieve, a postponement of my promised death-- but monotony was another entirely. 

I wondered if Mildmay and Gideon had found my matchbook. Once, I had had a lighter, a nice little thing, lacquered with my name engraved in the side. Like many of the gaudier things I'd owned, it had been a gift from Malkar. And like _all_ of the more expensive things I'd owned in the last year or so, I'd sold it.

But I had a matchbook, to melt the chemicals I'd later pour into my veins. No, neither Mildmay nor Gideon had thought to throw out my matchbook, hidden under the floorboards like a love song. I leaned out the window, and burnt each individual page of my little handbook, watching the ashes float on the wind. I didn't know much about weather as Malkar had seen that knowledge unnecessary in the aid of my 'betterment', but I imagined the ashes following the current of the wind... toward the harbor? To the bay. Gently floating along, eventually getting sucked up by the waves, quietly accepting death and obscurity.

Never let it be said that my subconscious was a particularly _subtle_ thing.

My brother reappeared after fifteen minutes-- or, as he'd say, _thereabouts_ \-- with a trash bag full of divinity only knew and a singularly horrified expression. "The _hell_ , Felix?"

I could see by the look on his face, yes, he'd realized I was going to be more effort than he'd initially guessed. He seemed respectable, to me. Stalwart. Patient, and kind. The type of person who had better things to do than waste their efforts on lying whores. For his sake, I hope he left soon.

But, instead of leaving, he snatched the remaining unburnt papers out of my hands with surprising strength for a man so short and compact. Then again, what would I, Felix the Perpetually Limp-Wristed, know of strength?

He took my matchbook, too. "Fuck's sake, Felix." And then, he actually threw the book of matches out the still-open window.

"What if we need to light a candle?"

"You got any candles?"

"No."

"Well, then," he said, and not without anger. He shook his head, muttering something, probably some slurred obscenity, under his breath. Out of his trash bag, he pulled two rather ratty, worn sleeping bags. "There you go. Just as fucking ordered."

"How... how did you get them?" As, perhaps, a sign of my lifestyle for the past eleven months, I did not for a second think he'd bought them with money. Nor did I notice that Mildmay hadn't corrected me. He'd lived a long time without money. 

Relation has, I've learned, more to do with blood. There are traits, habits, that one cultivates with their kin, either through blood or simple familiarity. In a strange turn of events, the circles I had inhabited had overlapped with others, and those with yet more circles, to form a chain with Mildmay at its end. We had never met, but our behaviors matched. I had no one to thank for that, save a lifetime of clients and buyers, profit and exchange. It hardly mattered that I was cargo and he had been collateral. We still spoke the same.

In the midst of my philosophizing, I'd missed Mildmay's answer. It was difficult to understand him, I was coming to see, if one did not concentrate all their effort on the ugly timbre of his voice. Something to do with that scar, I supposed.

I asked him to repeat himself.

"I got 'em through the oldest way of getting 'em."

I was agog. "Prostitution?"

"No, you-..." He stopped short of insulting me. He always found it difficult to hurl abuse at another. A shame, seeing how few compunctions the rest of the population had about making up the difference. "I stole it."

I looked at the tattered sleeping bags no sprawled on the floor of my bedroom. Once, this room had been a center of commerce, a social center. I'd picked proteges, chatted with producers, and declined contracts on a whim.

"I should hope so. I'd hate to think of you paying _money_ for that trash." An insult mingled with a compliment, what an excellent way to foster familial love. No wonder my mother had given me up.

"Yeah, well. Should do enough." He took the sleeping bags, tatty things that they were, and unzipped them, lying one on top of the other out on the patch of floor where my bed had been. It was such a wholly maternal gesture, a sorry, grasping attempt to fill the a space empty of more than just furniture. Together, one atop the other, there was only room for one. 

Our mother had given him up, also. I couldn't begin to understand why.

"You can't possibly sleep on the floor."

"Did last night." He shrugged. I was beginning to think that was something of a habit, with him.

"You slept... on the floor? Whyever for?"

Mildmay said something that sounded, in its grunted and slurred way, suspiciously like 'that rhymed'. I opted judiciously to ignore him. 

"If you slept on the floor last night, it's hardly sporting for me to hoard comfort tonight. I'll manage."

"Naw," he said, not even trying to haggle or argue. He simply dismissed my objection out of hand, and that was that. He was a stone; I could hardly try to argue. It only occurred to me months later that perhaps Mildmay had meant the floor of _my_ apartment, and by then it was too late to ask.

But in the present, we were once more left with nothing to do or to say. We had a place to sleep-- or, well, I did-- but nothing else for entertainment. I'd sold my television, the radio, the computer, my books... this did not seem to bother Mildmay overmuch. He seemed content to sit in the corner, staring just left of my head.

I'd seen how we were related, in our resemblance, our actions, accents. But here, now, I saw the many ways in which we were not.

I cannot abide silence.

"So, we're... brothers, then." An uncomfortable subject in the extreme, but it _did_ get Mildmay's attention.

"Uh, yeah," he said. "You, uh... you remember that?"

"The troubled circumstances of my birth?"

"Shit, no, I mean me telling you about that." Mildmay looked rather queasy at the thought, and I wondered what state I'd been in, upon receiving that knowledge. 

A sudden flash of memory: I had been in one of the visitor's rooms, bathed in warm light, and I had been a crying, grasping, gibbering mess. Mildmay had held me in his arms, and told me some half-remembered story about Methony. Out of habit, I had attempted to fellate him. For my trouble I had been very gently, but very firmly, pushed aside.

I suppose it was best I didn't remember, and decided, for the future, to keep a firmer hand on my mind, and tend carefully what was allowed to bubble to the surface. For that particular memory, I supposed it was best I didn't show I'd discovered it.

So I said, "no, I don't recall."

"Oh, right," Mildmay said. "Well, um... I don't suppose it's difficult, y'know, to figure out how you got a sibling."

"Yes, I suppose we both owe a silent prayer to Our Lady of Broken Condoms."

Mildmay coughed, a brusque, almost canine noise that was supposed to-- I assumed-- symbolize laughter.

"Yeah. And whoever else. I mean, they only found me, but... well, The PI was supposed to find Methony, but, y'know, she died in that fire... in the red district. Years back." He looked at me, expression blank, yet strangely expectant.

Taking a page from his book-- and there, another flash of memory, he was... illiterate?-- I shrugged. "I'd always assumed as much. Confirmation is, I suppose, its own blessing."

"Uh, yeah." My brother shrugged. How educated was he? Clearly not very, but then, we can't all have... the word 'benefactor' seemed out of place, when referring to Malkar. Malefactor, perhaps. "Anyway, so the PI lady found me," he coughed out.

"PI... _lady_?"

"Uh, yeah. Mehitabel Parr." My brother didn't carry a wallet-- presumably that was too easy to pickpocket-- but he did have an expansive network of pockets littering his form. From one of them, he produced a card. It was white, completely barren, save for black letters: MEHITABLE PARR (STRESS THE SECOND SYLLABLE) and a phone number.

I frowned. "You are aware Miss Parr is an actress, not a PI."

"What?" So, apparently not.

"An actress. I saw her in The Lady Porphyria a few years back. She's a rare talent. I can't imagine she does... investigation on the side."

I could not tell if Mildmay believed me or not. He only shrugged, and I was forced to carry the weight of the conversation. Was a feeling of niggling annoyance common, among siblings? I would have to consult an oracle, if I was curious; surely, no one among my acquaintance, past or future, would know.

"Mehitabel... that's a foreign name." I'm not sure what that meant; surely, it wasn't as though I thought a foreigner couldn't be an actress... or, I supposed, a PI.

"Yeah," said Mildmay. "So's your... boyfriend." 

I wondered, for a moment, what word Mildmay had initially been searching for. And then I realized I didn't want to know. "I don't have a... a _boyfriend_."

"You... you are a moll, right?"

"Yes, the gossip magazines were correct on that one detail. I don't suppose that will be a problem?"

"Nah, just, y'know, thought I'd make sure." My brother laid back on the hard wood floor, his head gently resting on the edge of one of the sleeping bags. I found the movement-- gentle, unassuming, and only concerned with his personal comfort in the most cautiously submissive way-- extremely incongruousness with his general appearance, and for that, hugely endearing. And, of course, this feeling of true, pure, honest emotion was followed with a flash of desire. I hoped they reserved a seat in Hell for me; it seemed as though I'd need it.

"Fair enough," I said, and hoped my voice didn't sound strained. If it did, Mildmay's expression showed no indication. Of anything. At all. Perhaps he was blind; there was no way of knowing. "And, you are, I assume, resoundingly heterosexual."

He gave me blank look, but I repeat myself. I clarified: "You're straight."

"Right." After a cautious pause, he said, "'ll that be a problem?"

"What? No, of course not, I-" I paused. "That was a joke, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," he said, and offered nothing else.

I sighed. I had, it seemed, nothing else to do. "You have perhaps the most excellent poker face that I have ever encountered."

He shrugged. I began to wonder if he had some sort of tic. "Well, half of it's dead."

"What?"

As ever, with him, when I showed any sign of confusion, he assumed I hadn't heard him, and repeated himself very slowly and carefully. He said, "Half of my face's dead. The scar?"

"Ah, yes," I said, and began, very slowly and as gently as an ungentle man such as myself was able, to reach forward and attempt to touch it. I could see that the skin was a knotted mess, and my eyes followed the jagged edges where stitches had broke, and, presumably, where a deep infection had once taken hold. My heart ached at the idea, assuming, as I always did, that everyone else had a vanity to match mine. To scar myself in such a way would be... awful.

But Mildmay only reached forward, and with an amount of strength I found both remarkable and restrained, moved my hand aside. His hands were gentle and warm. I longed to- the doorbell rang, oh, thank God.

It turned out to be my landlady, asking after my needs. Mildmay greeted her at the door, and I hid; I had a vague recollection of vomiting in the woman's vicinity, and could for this reason not stand to look her in the eye. And she, for presumably that same reason, had cultivated a desire to mother me. 

Mildmay managed to dispatch her in enough time, and we were left to our devices once more. I read the paper. Mildmay did something that could only be described as meditation. Night fell, and I slept fitfully and with bad dreams. I woke several times to hear Mildmay pacing the floors in the other room, and once, I found him sitting next to where I slept. I reached for him, in the darkness, and he ignored me.

The next day, another handful of hours passed without incident or consequence. I read the same articles in the paper. Mildmay stared at the same patch of wall. At around noon, I hatched a plan.

"Mildmay," I said, walking into the living room. "I'm going back to work."

He looked up at me with a countenance as impassive as winter. 

"Now."

"You up for it?"

"If I don't do _something_ with my time, I will go insane."

This seemed to get his attention; he gave me the full force of his gaze, which was... startling. "We could get a TV," he said. Of course he didn't think, oh, _books_. Then again, models didn't really have a reputation for intellectualism. That _was_ the initial source of my attraction to Gideon, hadn't it been? I couldn't entirely recall, so I put it from my mind. 

"I don't _want_ a television." I sounded like a spoilt child. "I _want_ to go back to work."

He nodded.

"If I don't, I'll become so bored that I'm sure I'll find a way to mitigate this with more stimulants."

Nothing.

"Drugs, Mildmay. I mean drugs."

"You're threatening _me_ with _you_ taking drugs."

Yes, that was, I realized, about the gist of it. I really couldn't believe it wasn't working, considering all the effort Mildmay had put forth in the interest of keeping me sober. Though, of course, I still didn't understand his motivation even for _that_. I had stumbled backward into family, and now attempted, with perhaps my only altruistic relationship, to poison it with threats and collateral.

Well, giving up _now_ would surely be a sign of cowardice.

So I said, "Yes. Yes, I am."

In an hitherto unseen amount of facial expression, Mildmay rolled his eyes at me. "I'll call the fucking... modeling agency?" 

"No, I... I think I'll do that."

So I did. I explained the situation to my agent in a calm, high, bright voice-- if voices could be bright, I reasoned, mine certainly was-- and my agent happily listened and set up a shoot for me in a few days. She did not send me an advance. I supposed that was only fair, considering what I'd done with my last advance.

"There," I said. "Done."

Mildmay, who had listened to the conversation while staring at that same patch on the wall, shrugged. "Okay," he said. "I'll, uh, be going, I guess." He stood.

"What? No. No, come here. I'll need, er... a companion."

" _What_?"

"Oh, don't flatter yourself." If dramatic irony could kill, we would both surely be dead. "Look, I will be reentering the social circle which initially... troubled me."

"Right."

"Yes, that is an excellent euphemism, I agree. _Anyway_ , I'll need you to..." How best to put this? "To save me from temptation."

Mildmay continued to stare at me. It wasn't a blank stare. There was _something_ in the center of it. But that was not a language in which I was yet conversational, much less fluent.

"I have never been a creature of undue integrity. If someone offers me something, I may take it."

"Oh," Mildmay said.

"Don't let me do that."

"I won't." He said it with such certainty, such assuredty, that for a moment I forgot that I was setting him up for almost certain failure. For a moment, I believed him.

"I'll say you're my... bodyguard."

The blank look returned.

"You said you'd done bodyguard work in the past."

"I said I was a bouncer."

"Close enough. Look, I need to buy some new clothing in the meanwhile, and then some books."

"Books?"

"Yes, books, or I will go mad." Again. 

"You got money for this shit?"

"No," I said. "But this... Gideon fellow assuredly does."

Mildmay only nodded, not judging, so of course that fell to me. I was horrible, I was despicable, I did it anyway. Mildmay gave me Gideon's number, and upon hearing his voice, gentle and just slightly accented, I instantly recalled the rhythms of our aborted relationship, if not the establishing moments. It was my job to be charming, effervescent, and entrancing. It was his job to be confused as to why I was even interested, and accommodate my whims. Of course, the truth would harm him. No one wanted to hear _I stay with you because you are harmless_. Instead, he presumably assumed it was his kindness and charity. 

To be fair, his kindness and charity, along with Mildmay's gentle touch, had saved my life. I owed him... something. And, while I figured that out, I would replenish my wardrobe and my library.

Gideon was charming, kind and polite, and I found I did certainly _like_ him. My cruel heart did hold some level of affection for him. I did not find his company boorish, and in fact our conversations were often intellectually stimulating. He took me on dates to quiet restaurants that, months prior, I would have found myself extremely bored with. But now, grateful and still occasionally _shocked_ to be alive, I found the world infinitely more agreeable.

And, through this flirtation, Mildmay sat like a stone in my apartment. I do not know if he left while I was gone. But he was always there when I returned. He helped Gideon carry in a bookshelf, a proper bed, and the rest of the furniture he'd bought me. And by the time the shoot rolled around, my apartment was once more properly furnished. Sparsely furnished, but I had books again, and that was enough for now. If anyone asked, I could cite the more respected tenets of minimalism.

So Mildmay and I arrived at the shoot well-fed and well-dressed. Or, well, I was well-dressed, and he was well-fed. My appetite was back, but I was attempting to manage it carefully.

In the elevator, I turned to Mildmay. "Wish me luck?"

He looked at me, momentarily confused, and I thought of the high price that I would pay for even the smallest window into his mind. 

He said, "uh, luck?"

And, before I walked onto the set, I shook his hand. "You know," I said, very cautiously, "this might not work."

"It will," he said. I wasn't sure if this was priggish confidence, or something deeper. Intuition? Or, perhaps, he was trying to assure himself as much as me. 

He was my brother, and yet I could not possibly know his mind.

He said, "don't fuck up." 

Perhaps knowing his mind wasn't the important thing, so long as I could abide his company. "I _won't_."

"Good. Now fucking go, you're gonna be late."

So I walked on set, and watched as the metaphorical hordes descended upon my brother, asking questions, flirting, grinning. That was the environment in which I thrived. In my place, I could only imagine that Mildmay was suffering. Yet, he bore it with impressive fortitude. I supposed, if I found him inscrutable, he was like a dead language to my colleagues. 

"Felix," said the man at the camera. I had the vague recollection that his name was _Garamond_ something. "Felix, can you move over there-? Yes, perfect."

And I ceased my worries about my brother, and got to work. It was an easy rhythm to fall back into, and I was good at it. I could remember Malkar's dry critique: _Of course you are, darling, you're the center of attention_. And that was fair. But it didn't diminish my skill. At least, this is what I told myself, late at night when I thought on my shallowness, my lack of scruples.

The shoot was over quickly, and Garamond shook my hand and gave me his card. "I have a catalog coming out soon, I want you in it."

I smiled. "I'll keep you in mind."

His mouth twitched, and I wondered if he was _trying_ to seduce me, or if he was just oblivious. Poor creature. I gave his card to Mildmay, and Mildmay stowed it away in the mysterious expanse that was his jacket. 

In the cab home, I said, "there, that was easy enough, wasn't it?"

He shrugged. "You did most of the work." 

"You suffered the amorous advances of half my colleagues. I have for you only pity and admiration."

He looked at me, and perhaps in a concession to my lack of skill in mind-reading, raised a single eyebrow in question.

"My coworkers hit on you. I'm sorry that happened." 

He shrugged. I had the sudden temptation to throttle him. Kindly. He turned back to me. "It don't bother me. They're just joking."

"Not all of them."

He scoffed, the return that odd bark of laughter.

"I'm not joking, you know."

"Yeah," he said. "Your fucking... colleagues. Sure."

Did I detect bitterness in his tone? I leaned toward him. "Do you want me to set you up with one of them?"

Mildmay's voice was clear, strong, and as bright and hard as mine had been, once. " _No_."

He didn't speak to me again for the duration of the taxi ride, and I pretended not to know the source of his offense. We didn't know each other very well, but I knew how to needle _anyone's_ insecurities, regardless of their familiarity to me. And that hadn't been fair.

I didn't care nearly as much as I should of.

That night, I continued to sleep very poorly, and very often I stood and paced within the expanse of my bedroom. I fretted. I read. I looked out the window. And, at around four in the morning, I saw light creep in from under my door. Mildmay was awake, in the living room. 

If I concentrated, I could hear him: "Uh, Miss Parr? You said I should call you. You- You. Said. I. Should. Call. You. Yeah, I- yeah. Not tomorrow, no, how about the day after. Noon? Okay, see you there."

Whoever this Miss Parr was, actress of PI, my brother had, directly after I had offered to set him up with a model, set himself up on a date with her. I attempted to put my jealousy aside, and instead be happy for him. And while I thought on my own selfishness, I realized I'd missed something crucial.

I realized in a flash that I'd understood him completely, fully. The woman on the phone had asked for him to repeat himself, but I hadn't needed the courtesy. I felt absurdly proud of myself. I had bridged the gap of his scar, made communication possible. If I thought about it, it had been _days_ since I'd truly been confused by the patterns of his speech.

"Mildmay?" I sat up in bed, and watched as Mildmay opened the door, peering in on me with caution and restrained concern. I asked, "Mildmay, do you like pancakes?"

"Uh," there, I had truly perplexed him. "I guess?"

"Alright, then." I stood, and strode toward the kitchen, walking straight past my brother still hanging in the doorway. "I'll make you some. I can make pancakes, you know." Malkar had taught me how, but I figured I'd best put the skill to good use.

"And eggs?"

"Yes. Yes, I can make eggs." I had taught myself that skill. "I'll make you anything you like."


End file.
